Humans not all bad for forests

is necessary to maintain certain forest habitats, say Belgian researchers in a study on the Congo rainforests in central Africa, the world's second largest. The researchers set out to find out what was preventing the regeneration of light-demanding trees that dominate the canopy of the rainforests.

Their analyses, which focused on four species in the northern Congo Basin, showed that most trees in these species were about 165 years old, meaning they were planted in the mid-19th century. The European colonisation had begun in the region around this time and people were moved out of the forests for administrative and commercial purposes. "As common logging operations do not create openings large enough to guarantee that such species will be able to establish themselves naturally, complementary treatments are needed. These might include selectively logging mature trees around young members of light-demanding species, or planting threatened species," suggests the report, which was published in eLife.